The Poultry Meat, Farmed Game Bird Meat and Rabbit Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2002

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Poultry Meat, Farmed Game Bird Meat and Rabbit Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1995 (“the principal Regulations”). These Regulations extend to Scotland only. The amendments have effect to–

(a) exempt from the principal Regulations certain local sales of small quantities of poultry meat or rabbit meat by farmers with an annual production of less than 10,000 birds or 10,000 rabbits (regulation 2(2) to (6)); the definition of ‘holding' in regulation 2(2) is made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972;

(b) prohibit a person from operating a licensed low throughput slaughterhouse unless that person has notified the Food Standards Agency of the number and origin of the birds and rabbits to be slaughtered there (regulation 2(7));

(c) revoke regulation 15(3) (exemption from requirement in respect of transport documentation) and make consequential amendments to regulation 15(1) and (2) (regulation 2(8) and (9));

(d) amend regulation 18(1)(a)(i) (duty of occupier to keep records) to require the occupier of licensed premises to record the origin of meat entering the premises (regulation 2(10));

(e) amend the requirements in Schedule 5, Part I, paragraph 5 in relation to refrigeration equipment in low throughput slaughterhouses and low throughput cutting premises (regulation 2(11));

(f) correct an error in Schedule 8, paragraph 11 (regulation 2(12)); and

(g) amend the requirements in Schedule 14, paragraph 1(a) in relation to the transport of fresh meat of birds from low throughput slaughterhouses and low throughput cutting premises (regulation 2(13)).

The amendments made by these Regulations come into force on 1st April 2002 except for those made by regulation 2(2), (3), (4), (5) and (6), which come into force on 1st December 2002.

These Regulations implement further the provisions of–

(a) Council Directive 91/495/EEC concerning public health and animal health problems affecting the production and placing on the market of rabbit meat and farmed game meat (O.J. No. L 268, 24.9.91, p.41); and

(b) Council Directive 71/118/EEC on health problems affecting the production and placing on the market of fresh poultry meat, a consolidated text of which is annexed to Council Directive 92/116/EEC (O.J. No. L 62, 15.3.93, p.1).

Regulation 3 (made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972) makes a consequential amendment to the Products of Animal Origin (Import and Export) Regulations 1996.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment for these Regulations, which includes a compliance cost assessment of the effects which these Regulations would have on business costs, has been prepared and placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies may be obtained from the Meat Hygiene Division of the Food Standards Agency, St Magnus House, 25 Guild Street, Aberdeen AB11 6NJ.